clovetra's reviews
144 reviews

god this book had such potential!! and sadly it did not live up to it. this book's pacing was so odd, and coupled with the fact the actual "mystery" was only explained >80% into this book was a bit.... eyebrow raising.
i will say i liked iris, she was a good protag. kinda was a blank slate but i think that was her role.
vivi can have my soul esp since she seems to love hungarian women. vivi hmu i can show u my grandma's village we can get it on queen. sorry i love a bald lesbian who also is down with the magyars 🔥
grey was... idk. i still cant put my finger on my opinion of her. i mean she was... fine. with how big her role was for this story though... she was a bit of a let down. especially since for like 90% of this book she spoke in cryptic phrases that actually just pissed me off. at some point i want to be reading this book because im invested in the characters, not just that i want them to shut up and stop saying vague terms to actually explain the whole mystery element of this story. like by the end, this book became so interesting! but when i only find the last fourth of your book intriguing......
like

the fact the girls were changelings all along? and killed the real hollow sisters? the dad was the bull (which ngl was predictable but its YA so im not gonna be too harsh on that)? cate knew they were changelings??? tyler had his fucking SKIN REMOVED AND WORN LIKE A SUIT????????

was so good! if the whole book was that i wouldve easily given this 4/5 stars. but when most of ur book is building up to a reveal that doesnt come until the very very end and then almost NOTHING is done with the reveal?????? nawwww
also sorry the minute i read

iris kissed tyler

this book became a chop. sorry i cant fucking stand the

a relative of a missing person & the missing person's partner kiss because they share such a deep love for said missing person

trope. not to mention

iris is 17 and tyler is fucking 20!!!!!!! EW AGE GAP

.
i think a lot of these "issues" i have with this book can be attributed to its YA nature but some... like literally i love the premise i just wished it was executed better. like this book had some great parts! the opening chapters were quite good ngl, as were the final 4 chapters. but everything in the middle? it was not enjoyable for me im afraid. idk i think the concepts explored at the end deserved some more run time, with the whole "ooo where's grey" schtick being shorter as to expand those concepts. i mean for me personally im not saying change the entire book just for little old me 😭 but you know? great concept, missed the mark more often than it probably should have.
also sorry i feel like the "horror" elements were all mish-mashed together. like the flower stuff... the fucky-ass ending with the bull? like idk it reminded me a lot of You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight & She Is a Haunting but idk like those books this felt..... like it was missing multiple puzzle pieces. 

i find this book so hard to rate. on one hand, this is probably the best fantasy book i’ve ever read, and i immediately want to read the prequel. on the other hand, i did find some issues with this. anyways im gonna break my thoughts down & maybe that’ll edge me into a decision:

- i loved ead. i would marry ead if she was real. i love her. her overall characterisation was sublime, and although her ending is bittersweet, it is overall good.

- sabran underwent one of the best arcs i’ve read. going from a mean, arrogant, stubborn women to a

forgiving, understanding and someone open and actively causing change

was amazing to read. her ending was perfect, as was her dialogue. no notes

- i found myself getting… bored at times with tané. i like her sure. but compared to ead’s main story, not as much happened here. her story only really felt as though it picked up like 65% into this book. which for a book that is 800 pages….. that’s too long

- loth was ok! like it was written well, but i didn’t grow beyond anything to just liking him, and found his story often to be a waste of time

- roos can go choke. i don’t care. i don’t even care if the intention was to have a main character so insufferable. i hated him & his chapters and i wish him pain and suffering even though he’s not even real.

i would say the overarching plot was so intriguing. it felt perfectly paced, and had plot twists galore. so much kept changing, so i was constantly on the edge of my seat. i saw a review saying this book rambled a lot and honestly, i disagree! this book absolutely needed the pages it did. it would not be as good of a book as it is. i mean yeah it could’ve been split into multiple books but i felt like it defo needed all its pages. 

but, it wasn’t perfect. for one, so much was going on all the time, meaning i would forget shit. like this is the first book ive actively had to note take just to grasp. that also ties in with the fact nothing is explained!!!! i mean obviously a lot is explained, but many crucial foundations to this story are not explained, and either thrown into the glossary & timeline. that is all fair & dandy, but i should not have to search ur book to remember who crucial characters are! sure if they’re random side character A ok u don’t need to explain them, but when you don’t explain what the fuck virtuedom even is, or the dukes court (i don’t even remember the name oh my god). like i still could not remember who was the duke spiritual, a crest, a goldenbirch, or combe. like please set some foundations. ur big bad should not be explained in the fucking glossary!!!!!!!!!!!! also come on not explaining simple things like what an ichneumon is. (edit: google is confusing me as to whether these are even real. but seriously what happened to death of the author. i should not have to consult anything BUT the text to know what’s going on imo).

that is the biggest “issue” imo holding this book back for me. it just expects you to be aware of how its world works. like yes should i have glanced at the glossary & timeline before beginning? yeah. did the glossary & timeline also have a shitload of spoilers? YEAH. like ??????

i very much did love this book, i would literally die for ead, sabran & tané, and wanted to cry when i realised i was done. but idk the lacklustre worldbuilding foundations were infuriating. goinng further with the worldbuilding e.g. the story of cleolind, the priory, etc. was great! the layers needed to build up to that though were…. lacking. 
edit: i lied even tho i said this book did flop in parts i actually don’t care because this book made me so emotional & it feels wrong not having this as a 5-star based on how much it made me feel

i do truly adore the message of this book. the language, the ending, the story in general is quite touching.
this book was already going to be a tough one for me, as my dad passed away whilst i was a child, so i could relate a lot to the feelings in this story. reading about zoila's grief was especially hard, as although i dont remember my own grief as a child, i do remember my mums. 
i loved yahaira & her story, i felt i very much related to her, esp with her anger towards life. also shout out sapphics i love herrrrrrr
now camino..... im sorry i found her insufferable. and that was probably one of my biggest issues with this book. her anger towards yahaira unfair. realistic? yes. did it also annoy me? yes! like this girl did nothing to you. its realistic but idk it felt like i had to pick a side, and i will always align with the gay bitch sorry. 
i wont lie tho i didnt like camino from the beginning 🫣 she just didnt grow on me, and then was just a dumb character with her decisions. most of her plot followed her & el cero, but im sorry why didnt she just tell someone. literally at least one person. yahaira made dumb decisions sure but they were relative to grief. camino's dumb decisions were as a result of pride and idk i cant stand that shit.
the story felt rushed in a lot of places but also what do i want this is a poetry book. ofc its gonna be short. theres like 4 words on a page.
the ending was sweet, i will admit. but honestly when half the story is following camino and i dont really like her, its hard. i do overall like the story, i did find it good, god i just couldnt stand camino at all. maybe its because i decided to be number one dick rider for yahaira cuz shes sapphic & camino was angry at yahaira for like 60% of the book. idk. its 3am and all i know is that i didnt like camino. i might come back in the morning & write more but yeah. this was a book! nothing too good, but nothing too bad either. perfectly average

edit: ok im back. more proper thoughts:
- plot needed more fleshing out imo, but also im not too mad about this seeing as this is a poetry-based story
- characters felt one-dimensional
- i didn’t grow to care about anyone really except yahaira but even then i wasn’t worried for her
- predictable story
- i loved the language used but my ass had to google like half this book cuz i don’t speak spanish
- poetry itself was lovely and very relatable
i sound like i hated this book but it was perfectly average (for me)

this was such a cute story!!!!!! somehow giving both cottagecore lesbians & industrial revolution ye-olde vibes. 
shesheshen was such a delight to read about. lowkey love how she struggled with human civilisation & narrated weird ass shit humans do 💀 i also liked her formal way of speaking, it was super endearing. homily was such a girlboss too! esp in the ending! i was worried for where she was going but thank god this book had a happy ending (kind of... depends how u look at it).
i also loved the ridiculous amount of rep. seamless nonbinary characters? check. unapologetic sapphic love? check. lovely atmosphere? check. super interesting premise? check. super funny dialogue? check. unpredictable story that kept me (mostly) gripped? check! but, as much as i had fun reading this, i do find there are a couple of things holding me back from adoring this story.
a) the explanations of how the "wyrms" work was super hard for me to visualise & grasp. ive read fantasy & supernatural books before, but i found it incredibly difficult to actually understand what was trying to be depicted. like i could never tell what shesheshen really looked like? that may have been the point, idk. all i know is i had no idea how to picture her form. i kind of imagined her like oobleck, where she hardens up when she wants & is liquid at other times. 
b) the "plot twist" that hits you like 2/3s into the book came out of nowhere. im either a super observant reader or a complete blubbering idiot. but i did not see this coming. i was looking for something like what happened, as i just had a gut feeling there'd be a "plot twist" surrounding the mythicality of this book but what actually happened felt like it came out of left field. honestly i dont think i liked it? like i liked how the story was prior, and the plot twist kinda fell flat for me
c) it takes WAY too long for shit to start getting good. like i was only properly interested like. >50% into this. the beginning either needed more worldbuilding or idk something else because it took a while for this to get going.
d) i kinda was attached to shesheshen but i also kind of... didnt care about any of the characters. they all kind of felt one-dimensional, esp homily's family. i also think homily herself was a tad one-dimensional which sucked because i really liked her set-up!!! there was so much more that couldve been done with her!!!
e) the ending was weird??? it felt like an epilogue (hah... get it...) but idk it felt unecessary!! it shouldve been literally just the last chapter or something similar. it was a cute ending i will admit, but it also just made the pacing slam to a halt, from an adventure-esque story to a slice of life story.
this book had so much going for it & i so desperately wanted to love it!! like bro theres a (lowkey) ace relationship, lesbian love where one person is (yet again, lowkey) genderfluid, super interesting plot, classic "monster learns to love" trope that i adore!! i just found with all the positives this book has going for it, such as its humour & intriguing plot, it is a letdown in some other places </3
i still would say i liked this book! i didnt hate it, not at all! it just wasnt something i loved, and you know what? thats ok.

ok i think i can say i am a self-proclaimed greek mythology retelling lover. do they probably water down & bastardise the original myths? probably! do i care? nope!

look i’ve tried to read the actual works (looks at the odyssey with a glare) and i fucking hated it the whole time. but when they’re rewritten in the 21st century??? ohhhh ill never get enough of them.

this book was so quippy. bro there were so many fire one-liners. the story was incredibly lighthearted (which i needed!) yet entertaining. every character’s personality oozes through the pages, and you are sitting there rooting for everyone (except hercules he can get fucked).

i liked how this explained everything for my goo goo ga ga brain. i don’t know shit about greek mythology but boy did i love this! i loved how a big focus was on the women in his life, but also largely focused on what a dick hercules was. yeah he did some good things but bro if this story doesn’t have fictionalised aspects…… yeah he deserved what he got in the end. 

i’ll be real i didn’t know shit about hercules except he’s strong before this. i’m so happy this book simultaneously educated and entertained me, which honestly i find it hard to find a book able to do this.

i’ll be real tho and say that keeping track of everyone’s names is so hard. yeah that’s the point & the author literally references how everyone has the same name (iole, iolanus, and the other one who i forget). but i can’t say it didn’t confuse the shit out of me. i think my baby brain needed a biiiiiit more context going in to make this a 5-star ranking. but honestly for me i think that is all that is holding the book back, and it isn’t even the book’s fault!!!! it’s just cuz im uneducated regarding greek mythology!!!!!!!

anyways i fuck with meg from disney’s hercules even more now. SHE DESERVED BETTER!

i am so confused. i went in thinking this would be a classic slasher horror. it was not!

i’m ngl i went into this thinking in the beginning chapters that this would be a 4-star at least. but the end half of this book went buck-wild in the worst way.

i’ll be nice and go over positives - gay people!!!!! i love the gays. i also love the gen-z language seamlessly worked into dialogue. some authors do such a bad job of imitating gen-z slang but i think it was done really well here! i also loved charity and bezi so much ugh they’re my queens

ok and now on to the negatives…… man what the fuck did i just read. this book was lowkey marketed to be a slasher. suddenly we have…. whatever the ending was! not only did it feel like it came out of left field & was poorly explained, the actual horror was crammed into like 50 pages. cmon it’s a 200 page book you didn’t need to spend 150 pages setting up the end. like if you needed that time to set it up…. make the actual horror element longer? make the book itself longer????????? what are we doing here.

like i still don’t fully understand the ending and the “perpetrator”. bro shit just kept coming out of every where not making any sense. 

plus, when your story takes so long to actually begin the meat of it…. i get bored. like seriously i didn’t need to hear for the umpteenth time that felix & the others are slackers!!! ooooo!! like cmon from the blurb i knew they were dead. you didn’t have to pretend i didn’t know for almost three fourths of this book.

plus the ending……. Huh? like how did they survive…. 

idk man. this book was trying to subvert expectations commonly found in horror stories, and create the perfect “final girl”, but in attempting to do that the actual story itself was not good. charity was characterised super well! but the plot was rushed, poorly fleshed out, and confusing as all hell.

i’m ngl tho even though i just tore this book up i can’t lie and say it didn’t entice me. my ass was sat. esp since a twitter moot recommended it!!!!! like if i could rate the characters? 4/5. some characters fell flat but bro i loved charity. the story? 1/5. in my mind this averages out to my rating. 

hey even if a book is absolute garbage (looking at you twilight) if i have fun it’s going to get a high rating sorry! but as much as i found this fun i cannot look past these flaws. like they bugged me sooooo much reading this. 

i feel like i need a cleansing good horror story after this. i’m gonna have to read fuckjng motherthing or something now like a palate cleanser.

i feel it very hard to summarise this book. especially seeing as it is a biography about domestic violence. 

reading this book was very conflicting. at times, i hated the lyrical and vague writing presented, with abstract concepts plaguing this book, confusing the shit out of me. at other times, i adored the intrinsic thoughts of machado presented, and the format of the story aided in presenting how machado felt.

 i absolutely adored the choose your own adventure portion & the mini excerpts about queer history & abuse. i think i spent a solid 10 minutes pondering the choose your own adventure section. it felt so perfect for this book. the excerpts explaining abuse in queer communities was a great addition, with machado linking the stories to her experiences.

i didn’t really enjoy how this story jumps every where, and a lot of points are repetitive. the repetitive nature is probably a deeper commentary on the cycle of domestic violence i am too naive to discern, but it was frustrating as a reader. it kind of reminded me of “a woman is no man” by etaf rum in that sense - yes, these are novels based in truth, and domestic violence isn’t as simple as leaving. on a purely artistic form, this book was a beautiful explanation of the back and forth present with dv victims. but as a reader it was a difficult read. 

i do think this book has taught me a lot, especially within myself and a lot of lesbian history i didn’t know (shakes head at self). i do also think this book was beautifully written and something every queer person should read. but i don’t know i find there are a lot of “drawbacks” that i can’t even put a name to regarding this book. it’s so lyrical in nature it’s hard to describe what i loved & what i didn’t. 

i feel awful saying all these things because it’s a memoir!!!! this shit is real!!!!!! i am not just critiquing words on a page i’m critiquing someone’s lived experiences!!!!! but i can’t lie and praise this book till the cows come home. i don’t know i feel like this review is a bit scummy seeing as this is based in reality

ok by self-admission this lowkey kinda breaks my "lgbt authors and/or stories only for june" but... the story says both leads are bisexual so it counts in my eyes! 
now, other than that... this book was erm... not my style!
i think 2-stars is a tad harsh, but i dont like to give half-star ratings and 3-stars seems too.... nice.
my biggest BIGGEST issue is that the plot is so fantastical. and im not talking about the actual elements. like yeah no duh a story about a cursed movie with runes and witchcraft and shit is gonna be fantasy-based. but like this plot was so.....
first off, blurb is a liar. the blurb does NOT reflect the proper story sorry. like i thought this would be a cute thriller or horror... you know... like the book says. but i would say this has literally zero horror elements. well maybe one or two but like in a 315-page book? nah that doesnt meet the horror genre. this is magical realism and/or fantasy. 
also the plot literally is all over the place. most of the time i had no idea what was going on. like at the beginning i could keep up! but then after things felt rushed, explanations felt wishy-washy, and i was waiting for this to be over. honestly the only thing that kept me reading this was montserrat. shes a baddie, an icon, a fellow cripple queen, and the bisexual icon we DESERVE. 
another grievance is that the plot took so long to start. like when the mystical elements are introduced  >50% in the story.... its a chop im afraid.
ending felt weird, epilogue feels forced, story went from x character being resistant to what was going on to participating in like 50 pages.
idk man i think i might have liked this more if i didnt go in with false expectations. false expectations, mind you, the blurb of the book & its categorisations on storygraph + goodreads provided.
anyways i will say this was not a horror book you cannot convince me of that. its a thriller at best. but because i literally did not care about any character other than montserrat it was not thrilling.
this book was a let down and i can feel it begging to drag me into a slump. did not have fun.

god this was a cute book!
this review is gonna be short because this was a short story but... god i just want to squish this entire book.
i love how immediately accepting everyone was of grayce. i love the ending. i love the consistent blue and pink motifs to represent grayce's trans identity. i love that the tapestry affirms grayce's gender. i love that everything works out in the end. 
i love stories where trans characters just get to be happy.
happy pride month 

hmm. 

i don’t like comparing books because that’s like comparing art (not even “like” it literally is). but. sorry this is a worse version of the spirit bares its teeth SORRY

like yes books can have similarities! also this book literally predates tsbit so if anything that book copies this! but tsbit was magnificent…. and this was just…. good. 

like i’m sorry tsbit pulls off “afab protag in high society in the victorian era betrothed to affluent man goes rogue and pursues a career in surgery where a male relative undermines the protag and protag uncovers secret relating to murders occurring in an establishment they are studying in”. like

i know that’s suuuchhhh a niche ‘trope’ but THE OVERARCHING PLOTS ARE SO SIMILAR!!!!!

and tbh i wouldn’t even be mad!!!! if i liked this as much as i liked tsbit!!!!!! which i didn’t!!!!!!

which isn’t to say i didn’t like this!!! i did!!! just….. it was ok.

like lowkey i didn’t care about the main characters until i was like 70% deep. i think i became a tad disillusioned because the book felt “predictable” as it followed the same plot beats as tsbit? idk. but jack & hazel felt so surface level. ok yeah hazel is rich and betrothed to shithead and wants to be a surgeon. idk it didn’t feel like there was anything truly deeper. jack is just a poor boy who does some morally questionable things to survive. and he likes isabella. like ??? cmon give me more than that!!!! they felt so two dimensional!!! also there was zero buildup to their romance. it went from her meeting him to them being in love way too quickly imo. i needed more tension than that!!! make them meet sooner man idk. i just didn’t feel connected to their love story as it felt like it only happened because the narrative says it must, not that the characters actually have chemistry.

also can i just say….. the ending is pissing me off sitting here thinking about it. the ending literally concludes nothing and it’s so obvious it’s setting up for a second book. obviously i know there’s a second book but my god i would be fuming if i read this as it was released. cuz seriously there’s a big difference imo between leaving room for a second book but still having a lot of shit closed, and making it so obvious you have to read the second book for any conclusions. i don’t think i’m explaining this right but. i don’t know when everything is essentially left open-ended for another instalment it pisses me off. like agggtm still has room for sequels but many plot points are closed. so many are left open at the end of this book and it’s annoying! some of them im not mad at, like oooo what happened to jack. but like what happened with hazel & her exam? why is her family still staying away from her? why is everybody in the town not furious at hazel regarding bernard??? like idk man i would’ve liked a tad more conclusive-ness.

tbh i think the characterisation & overall plot were what let me down with this. i had heard suchhhh good things about this book (plus i get my hopes up when a book has a good cover like this!!!) but idk it felt like this did not live up to the hype……

i think i defo will finish the series simply so i can say i know what happens. but honestly im not too invested? i kinda just want to read the next book in the series to know where jack is, not how anything else actually turns out 😬

i will say tho a big positive is i love me a book taking place in scotland. SCOTLAND FOREVER!!!!!!!! jack also sounds like he’d be hot. hmu real life jack’s (please don’t it’s pride month and i’m a lesbian)